Re: Fwd: [Monotone-devel] Directory already exists?

[hendrik]

On Tue, Dec 18, 2007 at 05:11:42PM -0800, J Decker wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: J Decker <address@hidden>
> Date: Dec 18, 2007 5:11 PM
> Subject: Re: [Monotone-devel] Directory already exists?
> To: Timothy Brownawell <address@hidden>
> 
> 
> Having thought about this a bit more... if a directory is an object,
> why can't it just be merged with other changes?  If I make a
> modification to a file, and create a line, when an update happens,
> changes are merged even with the new lines... I mean lines are objects
> at a certain point.
> 
> I guess though if there is a conflict in that created line that
> already exists during an update... err no wait
> 
> if I make a modification to a file, add a line, commit it.
> 
> go to another box, and make the same creation to another file, the
> update basically just updates the revision number, and no change is
> done to the file... the file is not reported as 'updated' during the
> status of the update command.

Yeah ...  monotone merges text files, and does not pay much attention to 
whether the merged text file has the proper syntactic and semantic 
structure for the language the text file is written in.  For the 
languages monotone is usually used with, it usually works.

But for a data structure whose integrity is essential to monotone's 
correct functioning (such as directories) just doind such a merge could 
be catastrophic.  Even if it did something like what you specifuy, it 
would probably take a while to figure out what correctness conditions 
would have to be checked.  Easier to invite higher-level intervention;  
possibly more reliable, too.

-- hendrik